A Strange Case

Here’s a question: Is it stranger that Roman Catholics, ostensibly informed by a social tradition which has, for well more than a century, rejected the core tenets of free-market capitalism, embrace such tenets in open defiance of their magisterium or that Orthodox embrace such tenets as well? The Orthodox “defense,” which isn’t much of a defense at all, goes something like this. Because communism had such an undeniably disastrous impact on the lives of millions upon millions of Orthodox Christians, it not only makes sense, but is in fact fully justifiable, that they should see in capitalism, with its apparent nod toward “freedom,” a safe haven, nay, a glowing alternative to the communist system which, in practice, oversaw the nailing of priests to church doors and the violent oppression of those who would dare to live out their ancestral faith. The problem with that line of argument — one of many problems — is that it’s simplistic to the point of being worthless. For while it is true that communist rule over Eastern Europe brought with it unimaginable persecution against the Church of Christ, it is not necessarily true that such persecution came as a result of pure economic ideology. That is to say, whatever satanic violence dwelt at the core of 20th Century communism was not generated out of anti-capitalist animus per se. Something else was at work, and that horrific violence could very well have flowered under an apparently “free” economic system as it did under one that was largely command planned.

The problem with contemporary Orthodoxy, at least in the way it manifests itself in these Western lands, is that it more easily succumbs to the temptation to appear neither alien nor threatening to the dominant culture that surrounds it. Catholicism, for better or worse, made its peace with America some 50 years ago, and that peace carried the price of conformity with a worldview, even a lifestyle, that is, at its core, antithetical to Catholicism. No. It is antithetical to Christianity properly lived. What has kept Catholicism’s head above water is that it has never been without teachers who were willing to say otherwise. Perhaps those teachers weren’t always popes — a real shame in the age of the “celebrity papacy” — but they found a way to be authoritative to a faithful band of Catholics nevertheless.

Orthodoxy in America has never had such teachers who could give more than a fraction of their lives to the perennially fraught question of how to be in the world, but not of it. For whatever one can say of Catholicism and its social magisterium (and there are many, many wonderful things to say about it), there is, at its core, a sense that it is important, maybe even imperative, for Christians to find a way to live here first and seek Heaven second. If that sounds insulting, I apologize in advance. It is not mean to. Catholics on average, no less than Orthodox on average, desire to unite themselves to Joseph of Arimathea: They are seeking the Kingdom of God. The question which vexes them is how to do so while existing, for a time, in the kingdom of this world. In days gone by, which didn’t pass away all that long ago, there still existed the possibility (some might say “illusion”) that there is no conflict. Abide by what the Church says and life in this world, difficult though it may be, will present innumerable opportunities to work out one’s salvation. It doesn’t seem the Orthodox have ever been given such surety — certainly not now, and certainly not in the centuries following Mehmet II, Peter the Great, Vladimir Lenin, and so on and so forth.

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NemoJune 18, 2015

I’ve read this a number of times and am still puzzled by it because it is not my experience that most Roman Catholics or Orthodox are doctrinaire supporters of free market capitalism. Most would agree that communism is just plain evil since it portrays theft as a virtue under the guise of “redistribution” while appealing to people’s envy, one of he nastiest of sins. But that does not automatically turn Roman Catholics and Orthodox into free market capitalists. I think most would probably agree that, in a Christian society, every job should minimally pay a living wage, and this leads to the fuller expression of Christian economics known as distributism. Let the market be as free as possible so long as it is first assured that jobs are paying enough for people to live on, and money and power are as widely distributed as possible so as to avoid undue concentrations of same which give rise to good ole boys networks and all other rackets.

Free market capitalism, on the other hand, is a product of Protestant culture, and Roman Catholics and Orthodox who continue to push this sort of thing, even as so many people must now work four jobs just to pay the bills, are generally converts from Protestantism, are they not? At least this has been my experience. The problem is that such people are not more fully purged of their former Protestantism before they are accepted into these bodies.

I would hazard a guess that most conservative (and even a sizable number of traditional) Catholics in America support some variant of free-market ideology, whether libertarian, Tea Party, conventional Republicanism, etc.

In my experience, this is also true of many Orthodox as well, especially converts. So-called cradle Orthodox tend to be more diverse in this area, but that’s an impressionistic claim, not a scientific one.

Yes, indeed! It is in Greek parishes (at coffee hour) that I have heard the most ardent and vocal opposition to traitorous frauds like Limbaugh and Hannity; and rightly so because there is absolutely nothing conservative about traitorous neo-“con”-ism. I believe the Greeks do that to scare off any truly unconverted evangelical Protestants with all their nasty and moronic political baggage, and I commend them for it.

The Russians on the other hand are more inscrutable…. I suspect that the cradles might lean more Democratic than generally expected; but unfortunately the very same unconverted evangelical Protestants (i.e. Kool-Aid drinking “stiff-necked pricks” in biblical language) find their way into Russian parishes without meeting the necessary resistance that the Greeks provide. Clear advantage to the Greeks in this respect, but then the Greeks have indeed always warned us about Trojan horses!

It is my impression, and I am pretty certain that scientific data bears this out, that both Roman Catholics and Orthodox in this country have traditionally been overwhelmingly Democrats, at least since the New Deal. More specifically, they have been socially conservative, but economically “liberal” (according to the longstanding American misuse of this term). But yes, more recently hordes of Roman Catholics and Orthodox (cradles) have become Republicans for the simple reason that there was no longer any room for social conservatives in the Democratic Party. However, I have never interpreted this shift to mean that that many more cradle RCs and Orthodox had suddenly become free market capitalist ideologues.

The Russian Church has historically had the most ties with Western European culture, both before and after the Revolution. Aesthetically, the Russian Church also typically uses Western-style music, which can be surprisingly important in finding a footing when inquiring into Orthodoxy.

I was originally received into an Antiochian parish, actually. My choice of returning via the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia had far more to do with the parish and its priest than anything else. However, aesthetically and liturgically, I am much more “at home” with Russian-style Orthodoxy (ROCOR, MP, OCA) than the Greek or Antiochian churches. However, I do have a soft spot for some of the smaller Orthodox jurisdictions, like the Romanians, Bulgarians, Carpatho-Russians, and so forth.

I’ve not really had much exposure to the Russian branch. I was received into the Antiochene, after mainly frequenting Greek parishes. I’ve noticed the Albanian liturgy has more of a Western feel, to my mind at least.